Living in a poorer neighbourhood can adversely affect your sleep patterns, a new study found.

Using 2,202 pairs of twins, U.S. researchers looked at how living in a socioeconomically deprived neighbourhood might affect a person's sleep.

They found people who lived in areas with poverty, low education and poor housing tended to sleep less or more than the recommended seven to nine hours each night.

"The more socioeconomically deprived the neighbourhood, the more erratic the sleep duration," said researcher Nathaniel Watson, president-elect of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and professor at the University of Washington in Seattle.

"These results are a starting point for discussing the impact that neighbourhood-level factors have on sleep duration," he said.